Link Building Resources – A Curated List

by Jon Cooper

Never again will you have to point an SEO newbie to multiple pages on the Web to learn link building. Just point them here, tell them to read up, and they’ll be an expert in no time (OK, maybe not an expert, but they’ll know a ton more).

Like my link building strategies post, this is a work in progress, and the reason I made it is because there isn’t any definitive list of link building resources on the Web that can stand the test of time. I’m here to change that.

Link Building Blogs

There are a few outstanding link building blogs that regularly publish great content. Here’s each of them & their RSS feeds.

Clockwork Pirate (NOTE: this is now a bit outdated) – This is a free ebook by Kelvin Newman that completely covers every aspect of link building. Even if you’re an experienced link builder, I highly recommend getting yourself a copy.

Note: Since this post was published, I released my link building training course. I created it so I could point all beginners (and even experts) to one place!

Link Building Strategies

There are many strategies out there that are used to acquire links. Here are a couple evergreen lists that you can constantly reference.

101 Ways to Build Link Popularity – Created in 2006, this post has stood the test of time. Although I encompass just about all of the strategies listed here in the above post, it’s still worth mentioning because of how much this list has contributed to the SEO community.

131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies – This is the original link building strategies list. Although severely outdated, this is a landmark post you’ll come across regardless if I listed it here or not.

Link Building Tools

Here’s a list of link building tools for every step of the process. I know there are a ton out there, but these are the ones I’ve found to be the most helpful.

Backlink data providers

Open Site Explorer – This is my favorite provider because of the metrics that go along with each link. As a word of caution, this post shows that OSE only indexes in some cases about 2-3% of the inbound links a website has.

Majestic SEO – This is another backlink data provider that’s quite reliable. Majestic has both a fresh & historic index, as well as many other cool features. Also as a word of caution, the afore mentioned post on backlink data providers show that up to 80% of Majestic’s data is link rot.

Ahrefs – This is the next kid on the block for backlink data. It’s fairly promising, but it still has some work to do. Once again, see how it matched up with the others in the afore mentioned comparison post.

Major Link Indexes Compared – This isn’t a tool, but an article by Russ Jones comparing the above link indexes to understand their strengths & weaknesses. Definitely worth a read, but the main takeaway is to use OSE’s metrics (DA/PA), but use Ahrefs/Majestic for discovery given the sizes of their index.

Link Research Tools – if you’re looking for aggregate link data from the Big 3 (and a bunch of other small indexes), this enterprise tool provides just that.

Outreach Tools

Buzzstream – This is my favorite CRM when it comes to building links. I don’t recommend it for one-off campaigns like broken link building, but if you’re an in-house or if you spend a lot of time with fewer clients, Buzzstream is essential. You can also use it to prospect.

Tout App – This email productivity tool integrates right into Gmail, and you can also sync it with whatever CRM you’re using. In a nutshell, it saves you a lot of time during the outreach process, and it lets you see a lot of awesome analytics such as your open rates.

Raven Tools – Although I personally don’t use it very often, most of the link builders I talk with only have good things to say about Raven’s toolset. You can use it to find contacts, manage existing links, and a whole lot more.

Prospecting Tools

Ontolo – Hands down, this is in my opinion the best tool for prospecting. There’s so much you can do with this toolset it’s insane. You won’t instantly find prospects (plugin your queries and come back tomorrow), but it’s still quite an awesome tool.

Browser Extensions

Domain Hunter Plus – I like to call this one the broken link checker of the future. Although it doesn’t check links as fast as CML, you can quickly see how many links that broken URL has, download those links as a CSV, and you can check to see if those domains are abandoned. I did an in depth review here.

Mozbar – Use this extension to see link data right in the SERPs. If you use Firefox, you can export the search results as a CSV, saving a ton of time. Here’s an awesome walkthrough on the process.

SEOquake – You can also use this to export search results as a CSV along with a ton of awesome link data. Here’s a great guide to the process.

Chrome Scraper – This is another great extension you can use to prospect. Justin Briggs outlined how to use it here.

Bookmarklets

Wayback Machine – Just drag that link to your bookmark section, and when ever you get to a broken URL, hit that bookmarklet so you can see what used to be there.

Google Cache – When you hit this, you’ll see what the page looked like when it was last cached by Google. I’m mainly concerned with when the last time the page was cached (if it was cached).

A lot of others – The two above are really the only ones I use, but in this post Tom Critchlow goes over a bunch of others. If you’re using a fair amount, consider using Quix to manage them.

Outsourcing Platforms

Mechanical Turk – Outsourcing some of the tedious process of link building is also another time saver. Mechanical Turk is Amazon’s cheap labor force that’s great for this. Here’s a great post on using it for link building.

oDesk – Although usually a little more pricey, most of the workers here are much more fluent in English (from my experience). Here’s another great post from Ontolo on using this platform.

Elance – I personally don’t use Elance, but I know a few link builders who use it a lot.

Other Tools

Excel – It’s not exclusively a link building tool, but I can guarantee you you’ll spend more time with Excel than a lot of the tools listed here.

Screaming Frog – This is a link audit tool that you can use to quickly spider a site. For link builders, you can see broken links on all pages of a site, and not only just one page if you were to use CML or DHP.

SEER’s SEO Toolbox – This is a mashup of APIs in Google Docs that allows you to get data on pretty much anything you need. Hat tip to Chris Le for this.

Outdated Content Finder – Bill Sebald created this outstanding tool for finding outdated content. What for, you ask? So you can reach out to the writers & help them update any misinformation (and get a link in the process!). Here’s a walkthrough of it.

URL Profiler – desktop application (both for Windows & Mac) to grab metrics for a set of URLs. You can connect APIs to grab PR, Ahrefs, Majestic, Mozscape, and a few other data points.

Link Prospecting

In order to build links, you have to find the opportunities in the first place. Here are some of the top link prospecting posts from around the Web.

Link Building Outreach

Outreach is the process that separates the boys from the men. These posts will help you with scale the process, build relationships, and obtain a high success rate.

Content-based Outreach for Link Building – This goes down in my book as one of the greatest link building posts of all time. Justin Briggs lays out the entire process of doing manual outreach with your content.

What Makes an Effective Link Builder – Even though I include a presentation below with the same title and by the same person (Justin Briggs), this is still definitely worth noting. These are the characteristics of an effective link builder.

Screaming Frog Guide to Doing Almost Anything – Screaming Frog is a massively powerful tool, which is why this detailed review of just about everything you can do with Screaming Frog (including for link building purposes!) is extremely helpful.

The Broken Link Building Bible – broken link building is one of the best tactics in the game right now, and luckily for us, Russ Jones walks us through every step of the process.

The Most Creative Link Building Post Ever – I had a chance to ask over 50 SEOs one question, “What was the most creative way you, or someone you know, got a link?” The responses are well worth your time reading.

Creative Link Building for Ecommerce Sites – Having trouble figuring out how to use your products & content to get links? Well, Stephanie Chang has you covered. See how others are building links in really creative ways.

33 Links & How to Get Them – Justin Briggs and his team at Big Fish are killing it, and he was willing to show exactly how they got these particular 33 awesome links.

92 Ways to Get (And Maximize) Press Coverage – PR can be awesome for link building; who wouldn’t want a link from the Wall Street Journal? Chris Winfield walks us through each & every thing you need to know when trying to get covered by the press.

Using Email to Build Links – It was inevitable that Rand was going to appear in a video on this list. Find out how to build links through email (if you’re wondering, this isn’t the traditional outreach we usually talk about).

Link Building Presentations

If you missed one of these presentations in person, you can always check them out on Slideshare.

Link building mistakes 2011 – Learning from mistakes is the most valuable thing you can do. When someone else makes them before you, though, it saves you the pain. Wil Reynolds shows us some mistakes that he’s made and possibly we’re making right now.

Effective Link Building – This is one of my favorite presentations because it preaches hustle. Justin Briggs kills it with this one.

Other Resources

LinkMoses Private – This is Eric Ward’s link building newsletter. It’s $8/month, but there’s enough value in there to make it well worth it.

Point Blank SEO newsletter – I’m only including this because of Sean’s testimonial on my Build Links, Fight Cancer post. I send out new strategies, tips, and opportunities each month. You can use the form below my author box to signup.

ClickMinded SEO Course – more than just link building, but a training course that will give you a solid foundation in SEO, written by Tommy Griffith.

What did I miss?

I want to hear what you guys have to say. Is there a resource missing that should be up there? Let me know in the comments, but before you do, give me a reason why it should be up there, and make sure it doesn’t overlap with any of the resources above (i.e. dont recommend another infographic link building outreach post).

Great post again Jon. I checked my bookmarks and rss feeds but got nothing else to add in terms of blogs, tools and so on. The only item I found missing, I think, is a link or mention of Eric Ward’s Linkbuilding Newsletter. Maybe you didn’t want to add it because it is a paid subscription and you already provide yourself a lot of value for free;-).

hello Jon Cooper
I liked your article, like ” this is a work in progress, and the reason I made it is because there isn’t any definitive list of link building resources on the Web that can stand the test of time. ”

I just moved jobs so I was using your list above to remind me what essentials I need to hit the ground running – once again, it’s such a great resource! However, I have a suggestion based on my own usage patterns, though I hope you don’t take offense because it’s certainly not meant to be critical – more a result of how much I use this site!

Whenever I’m on Point Blank, I’m frequently clicking links to read what you’ve referenced, or in the case of this page, to download / sign up to something. It would be great if the links opened new tabs rather than leaving the page – as usually I end up closing the window automatically and have to navigate back to the page.

Just a suggestion of course, and feel free to tell me to keep my nose out! 😉

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